Fashion & Personal Adornment
Looking to make a statement without ever saying a word? Fashion designers know that clothing and accessories can speak volumes about the wearer, affecting both how the wearer is perceived by others and how the wearer perceives of him- or herself. The fashion industry has become a multibillion-dollar global enterprise devoted to the business of making and selling clothes; it thrives by being diverse and flexible enough to gratify any consumer's desire to embrace or reject fashionability, however that term might be defined.
Fashion & Personal Adornment Encyclopedia Articles
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shoe
Shoe, outer covering for the foot, usually of leather with a stiff or thick sole and heel, and generally (distinguishing it from a boot) reaching no higher than the ankle. Climatic evidence suggests that...
dress
Dress, clothing and accessories for the human body. The variety of dress is immense. The style that a particular individual selects is often linked to that person’s sex, age, socioeconomic status, culture,...
Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel French fashion designer who ruled Parisian haute couture for almost six decades. Her elegantly casual designs inspired women of fashion to abandon the complicated, uncomfortable clothes—such...
Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld German fashion designer and photographer best known as the creative power behind the modern revival of Chanel, the legendary French fashion house founded by Coco Chanel in the early 20th...
Isaac Mizrahi
Isaac Mizrahi, American fashion designer who was known for provocative clothing designs as well as for his outsize personality on television and in film. He made a career of dressing the Hollywood elite...
Manolo Blahnik
Manolo Blahnik Spanish fashion designer best known for his signature line of high-end women’s footwear. Blahnik was born the eldest of two children into an affluent family. His Czech father’s family owned...
Pauline Trigère
Pauline Trigère, French-born American couturiere whose award-winning design work was especially popular in the United States in the 1950s and ’60s. Trigère was the daughter of a tailor. She early learned...
Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren American fashion designer who, by developing his brand around the image of an elite American lifestyle, built one of the world’s most successful fashion empires. Lifshitz grew up in the Bronx,...
Giorgio Armani
Giorgio Armani Italian fashion designer whose signature style of relaxed yet luxurious ready-to-wear and elegant, intricately beaded evening wear helped introduce ease and streamlined modernity to late...
Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood British fashion designer known for her provocative clothing. With her partner, Malcolm McLaren, she extended the influence of the 1970s punk music movement into fashion. She was a schoolteacher...
Hubert de Givenchy
Hubert de Givenchy French fashion designer noted for his couture and ready-to-wear designs, especially those he created for the actress Audrey Hepburn. Givenchy studied art at the École des Beaux-Arts...
Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier French fashion designer whose iconoclastic collections in the late 20th and early 21st centuries celebrated androgyny, blended street styles with haute couture, and juxtaposed other...
Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs, American fashion designer renowned for his sartorial interpretations of trends in popular culture, perhaps most notably his “grunge” collection, which was credited with launching the grunge...
Christian Dior
Christian Dior French fashion designer whose creations dominated world fashion in the decade following World War II. Dior was born into a wealthy family and trained for the French foreign service, but...
Cindy Crawford
Cindy Crawford American fashion model and television personality who first gained fame in the 1980s and was among the first “supermodels.” Crawford grew up in DeKalb, Illinois, near Chicago, where her...
Tom Ford
Tom Ford American fashion designer and film director who was credited with reviving the fashion house Gucci during his tenure as creative director (1994–2004). He started an eponymous line in 2005. Ford...
Oscar de la Renta
Oscar de la Renta, Dominican-born American fashion designer whose work, blending European luxury with American ease, helped define standards of elegant dressing among socialites, U.S. first ladies, and...
Miuccia Prada
Miuccia Prada, Italian fashion designer best known as the head designer at the Prada fashion house. She is renowned for using minimalist designs to achieve a traditional style with modern influence. The...
Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen British designer known for his groundbreaking clothes, shocking catwalk shows, and precise tailoring. McQueen grew up in London’s East End; he was the youngest of six children of a father...
Gianni Versace
Gianni Versace Italian fashion designer known for his daring fashions and glamorous lifestyle. Gianni grew up watching his mother, who was a dressmaker, work on designs in her boutique. After graduating...
Rei Kawakubo
Rei Kawakubo, self-taught Japanese fashion designer known for her avant-garde clothing designs and her high-fashion label, Comme des Garçons (CDG), founded in 1969. Kawakubo’s iconoclastic vision made...
Stella McCartney
Stella McCartney British fashion designer known primarily for her fur-free and leather-free apparel as well as for her celebrity-studded clientele. Stella McCartney was the daughter of Sir Paul McCartney...